Daniel talked recently about actively “not knowing” what you are going to experience before you experience it. Don’t imagine you know what a Mormon temple looks like inside. Don’t imagine you know what a forsythia branch looks like in bloom. Go and take it in as if you’ve never seen one before.
This reminded me of a poem I have recited to myself every spring for the 20 years I’ve lived down a wooded lane. After months of snow, I’m so eager for the blossoms to emerge on the redbud tree. But what happens instead is a snowstorm, which threatens to dampen my spirits. After I remember this poem though, I go down the lane to see what surprises nature may have brought overnight. I’m glad I’ve been doing this for 20 years because, at 56 years old, I may have only thirty springs remaining to see the redbud tree in bloom.
Lovliest of Trees
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.
A. E. Houseman
Photo by camra_art
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